BS BULLETIN:

• President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday directing his administration to determine whether federal protections for gray and Mexican wolves should be reduced or eliminated.
• The order also directs federal agencies to consider making it easier to authorize lethal removal when wolves threaten livestock or human safety.
• Ranchers celebrated the move, while animal-rights advocates warned it could undo decades of wolf recovery efforts.

President Donald Trump has waded straight into one of the West’s longest-running fights: ranchers versus wolves.

Trump signed an executive order Friday aimed at giving ranchers more power to protect their livestock from gray and Mexican wolves while setting in motion a review that could ultimately strip the animals of federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.

Surrounded by ranchers in the Oval Office, Trump listened as they described wolves attacking cattle and other animals while federal protections limited what ranchers could do about it.

“You’re not allowed to protect yourself, right? Or your company, your cattle,” Trump said.

Then he asked them a question that pretty well summed up the purpose of the order:

“So how do you like the idea that I’m letting you do that?”

The actual order is more complicated than simply declaring open season on wolves.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has 90 days to determine whether gray wolves and Mexican wolves have met the recovery criteria necessary to be delisted or downlisted under the Endangered Species Act. If he concludes they have, Interior is directed to begin that process.

The administration must also prepare recommendations for Congress and encourage states to reconsider their own wolf protections if the federal recovery criteria have been met.

Perhaps most important to ranchers, Interior and Agriculture are directed to consider changing federal rules governing lethal removal of wolves, including allowing a faster response when predators threaten livestock or human safety.

There was even a revealing exchange during Friday’s announcement.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins explained that because wolves are protected under the Endangered Species Act, ranchers sometimes cannot shoot them and instead have to watch them attack their herds.

“But you can shoot them as of today,” Trump said. “Well, Secretary Burgum has to do a project, but, yes,” Rollins replied.

The administration argues that wolf populations have recovered enough to justify loosening federal restrictions.

Gray wolves and several subspecies were placed under federal protection beginning in the 1960s and 1970s after their historic range in the Lower 48 had been devastated. Federal protections and reintroduction efforts helped the population climb from roughly 1,000 animals around the time of the early listings to more than 6,000 by 2020.

But that comeback produced another problem: ranchers in wolf territory say they are paying the price when predators attack cattle and other livestock.

The fight isn’t new.

Trump’s administration removed Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves across most of the Lower 48 in 2020, declaring the species recovered. A federal judge overturned that move in 2022, restoring protections across much of the country.

Congress is fighting over the issue as well. The Republican-controlled House passed legislation in December seeking to end federal gray-wolf protections, but the measure remains before the Senate.

Animal-rights groups wasted little time condemning Trump’s latest move.

Kitty Block, president and CEO of Humane World for Animals, warned that rolling back federal protection would jeopardize decades of recovery and could lead to widespread killing of wolves.

The Trump administration sees it differently. The White House says America’s cattle herd is at a 75-year low while beef demand has risen nearly 10 percent over the past decade, and argues ranchers need greater freedom to defend the animals they raise.

For ranchers who have watched wolves attack their herds while Washington told them what they could and couldn’t do about it, Trump’s message Friday was unmistakable: Help is coming.

MY QUICK TAKE

Imagine watching a wolf tear into the cattle that pay your mortgage while Washington explains that the paperwork says you shouldn’t interfere.

That’s the sort of sentence only the federal government could make possible. If wolves have recovered enough that ranchers can reasonably protect their herds again, then update the rules. That’s what the Endangered Species Act is supposed to allow when a species recovers. And judging from the reaction, the wolves aren’t the only ones howling.

DBS WIRE SOURCES

• White House — Executive Order: Supporting America’s Ranchers
• White House — Fact Sheet: President Trump Supports America’s Ranchers
• USDA — Trump signs executive orders supporting American ranchers
• Washington Post — Trump moves to allow ranchers and hunters to kill gray wolves
• Associated Press — Trump announces action on gray wolves and ranchers